Daily Discussion Thread: 🎂🎂 Sunday, November 17, 2024

I feel surprisingly good today. At times there's a bit of post birthday blues, but apparently not this year!

Also I forgot I had a car so when I open the kitchen blinds, I was like "oh yeah! FUCK YES!"

Ended up having a really good music sesh as well before I went to bed which felt awesome!

Thanks again for all the birthday wishes, and support over the past year ❤️

Edit: Fluffy and I are going to laze around today I think. No responsibility, no thinking, just rest and recreation :)

You deserve all this and more. 😘
- That's incredibly kind of you ❤️
  Here's to a brighter year for us all!

Last day/night in old place. Shed a few tears in the morning...

Alright. Big girl pants are on. Feel-good bossa nova station is on. To-do list for each room. Fridge unplugged, washing machine drained and let to dry. One more FBM pickup this morning. Everything else to cull/donate is leaving my house today (except The Couch Of Doom).

I have planned a couple of rewards to bring some joy and goodness into this.

Started process of booking a week at my bolthole out in NSW over the xmas/new year period.
Gonna buy an instant pot (maybe second hand) so I can get through my pile of dried legumes
There will be pizza once I finish this move
Gonna ask work to book me in for some field work next couple weeks

Yass you can do it! And it will feel like home when you have your stuff in and made it your own. I have lived in big places and tiny old hobbit holes and anything can be a home.
And I vote for the instant pot. I have a smallish kitchen and ummed and ahhed because of storage but it is so helpful. Rice cooker, pasta sauces, dried legumes cooked without soaking, curries, yoghurt. I use it multiple times a week .
- Yeah, I'll be very tight on storage but reckon the instant pot will be worth the space - I'll never use the oven so I think I'll use it as storage. I'll still keep a separate rice cooker so I can have a curry and rice going at the same time 😁
  I have soooo many dried legumes, ironically purchased a week before all this rental shitstorm started. It'll be great to get through them all, and save heaps of money at the same time! Chana dal curries without soaking? Sign me the fuck up. Especially the set and forget part of it. Think I will have a crack at dal makhani as well, never made it before.
You are doing awesome! 🖤
You've got this and you're doing awesomely!
If you DM me your PayID or email I'll send you the cash, or an UberEats voucher to buy that pizza for you!
- Aw thanks! Nah, it's all good, I got paid on Friday and can certainly stump up for a pizza for myself without breaking the bank 😊
  I will save on some things at this unit as the rent is 35/week less than what I'm currently paying, water is included, and there is no gas. Some of that will have to go to laundromat costs (drying), but overall I will be financially OK. Plus I have my bond coming back in a little over two weeks...

An old mate is coming to stay for a couple of weeks in December!!!

I've known him about 20 years. We spent some crazy years in Brunswick sharehouses in the early 2000's doing some hectic things lol

He's one of those friends that I only see every few years, but we pick up where we left off.

He's actually been a good influence in my life, even in those crazy days. He taught me rock climbing which has been great fun, how to ride a motorbike, took me camping for the first time and taught me all that stuff. He's an absolute legend!

Fucking stoked to see him!!!

That's cool. 🙂

Word on the street is that the fan is staying on tonight lol

Edit: Can't sleep. Too much thinking. Maybe some video games for a distraction.

Please can I go back to my dream I just woke from? I had just bought a bubblegum iced pastry that had 100s and 1000s on it and was in the process of buying a rotisserie goose sandwich.

I've never tried goose.

Goose is the red meat of the poultry world. I like it, and a rotisserie would sorta kinda work. The meat is tougher than chicken, and has a distinctive flavour and texture. Those birds do give off a LOT of fat though and that fat is much nicer than the meat imo. Spuds roasted in goose fat are another dimension of yum. If you get a chance to cook a wild goose, then the coq au vin recipie is a good one that works better than roasting. Domestic goose can be cooked using any duck recipie.
if you head to studley park boathouse the geese will try you.
- Can attest to this - one nearly ate my kid when he was 3
Hot damn. I know what I'm requesting for lunch
💵💵
🥧
🍞🪿🍞
- Early delivery! Thank you again chef ❤️

I didn't exist yesterday. Today, I am drinking with my second cousin (dad's cousin). She is a riot, and will drink us all under the table, just like her dad lol. She is one of my favourite people, and I only see her every few years when she comes down from Brisbane.

I can't believe I'm related to this beautiful, smart, witty woman. She is my inspiration 🙌🏼💜🙌🏼

I've trained the sparrow to land on my shoulder or arm now. 🙂

I haven't achieved much today but I've turned black bananas into banana choc chip muffins and they're delicious.

Banana bread again here!
- I made banana bread the other day. Cleaned out my freezer, found another 7 bananas. They're breeding in there.
- Double batch banana bread here. One for lunch boxes for the week and the other I'll slice and freeze.

Choc chunk cookies are in the oven and the Xmas tree is up. I am back in favour with my kids once more 😆

Bit early?
- I put up the outdoor xmas lights 2 weeks ago 🌟
- The kids wanted to put it up about 2 weeks ago. I said no way it's too early man! But that argument's redundant when the shops have had Xmas stuff in stock for the last month. Ah what can you do.

Dragged myself out, got coffee, was going to go for a walk in the park, but I am already ITCHY and SWEATY!

TF, I loathe this pollen.

Bad bad hayfever already.
Not to mention this bushfire smoke! Dunno if you're getting it your way...
- I could smell it earlier in the northern suburbs, but it’s less bad now
- Haven’t seen any of yet. Which direction?

Morning friends

My attempt at macro phone photography, featuring my dad's attempt at a pizza oven from many years ago, made from a bathtub he found in hard rubbish.

Are those hakea nuts? Awesome picture. 🙂
- Possibly, according to Google Lens!
Bathtub pizza oven! Now that is not something I've seen before.

Alright, I'm getting there. Spent the whole day carefully going through every last drawer and cupboard for stuff to donate. No time for fb marketplace although I could've made some decent coin off some of these - especially a couple of vintage bakeware items and an almost new vintage Corningware dish. I got em all for free so some op shop will benefit instead.

Two carloads later, between those and the remaining plants/pots, and the big shit that won't fit in the bin, and pillows/towels for the RSPCA - and the tables sold on FBM - that's a lotta crap gone. Gotta love these Honda hatchbacks with Tardis-like volume and the magic seats 😀

Now to pack the remaining stuff for the movers to take tomorrow, mainly the kitchen stuff. The end is in sight...!

You got this! You have formidable talents for organisation.
- In an ideal world I would've spent a bit more time looking for nicer places, and maybe planned to cull over a longer period and sold more stuff online... but this is also OK! I get to focus on my uni stuff a lot sooner.
  I would aboslutely not have gotten this far without the help of friends, though.
So close! You've been through a hell of a lot the last few weeks. Hopefully you can have some peace soon :)
- It'll be a different kind of peace for sure... New digs are a lot more hectic and less calm. Main thing is I can settle in and focus on next steps without dealing with current LL's shittiness or house hunting
  I'm definitely motivated to get to the end of this whole thing
yay 🍺

Here's another quiz for you space nerds

Know Planets?

geebus, just got a hate letter from a neighbour in my mailbox, not against me but against my really nice Asian neighbour who does furniture making as a hobby. ( he occasionally uses power tools but not often, maybe a few times a week and only for a few minutes ) Coward didn't even sign their name. Hate letter that didn't sign their name or implicitly asked for specific action, just did rumour mongering and appeals to self interest.

- I sniggered when they mentioned they had gone to the police but the police did nothing!!
  Of course they didn't you racist fuck, the neighbour is doing nothing wrong or illegal.
Absolute fucking coward.
Ugh, crazy/malicious neighbours are the worst. Be careful and avoid that one as they tend to target multiple people.
Especially if they try to get you to join them in bullying someone else but you refuse
My old next door neighbour who was elderly and had way too much time on her hands im pretty sure left me multiple letters in my letterbox while she was living there.
I remember getting one telling me to turn down my tv/movie volume at night and telling me to mow the lawn.
Of course none of them were signed either but you could tell it just had to be her.
Not sure what’s worse. The notes in the letterbox or the passive aggressiveness of you meet face to face.
Glad she eventually moved out when she couldn’t look after herself anymore.
- Huh. Back in my Brunswick E. days, I had the TV too loud one night and my neighbors politely asked me to turn it down. Which, of course I did. Because we are all grown-ups.
  I never had the note experience. I think I'd just chuck it and ignore it. I honestly don't know what I'd do with it. "What is this high school shit?"

Cicadas are rude.

Rain not happening yet. Dare I water the garden or would washing the windows be more effective?

I've watered the lemon tree because the ground is so dry and hard that any rain will just run off
Can you wait an hour? My fluffy blanket is almost dry.
- For you, anything.
My car needs a wash, maybe I should get on to that
Why not both

Favourite part of yesterday's shenanigans: ::: spoiler spoiler

:::

Dinner's ready! Lasagne and a stupidly large amount of salad.

Driving home tonight with the sun setting, sunroof and windows open, cruising on the highway, perfect temperature, good tunes playing, for a moment I felt at peace.

Okay:

Washed
Chicken sandwich obtained
Vanilla flan smashed
Stupidly priced cookies for later

Now just waiting for the rain to pass to see whether I want to be out and about on two wheels. Perfect weather for the one the runs insanely hot. It would be nice to not to straddle 105°.

Even though I should be sorting this crapshow I have created. I just have such an aversion to it, that it is pretty much reflective of my state of mind… Yep, hot mess.

But also so tempting to just lay in bed. This is when I love the rain.

Edit: I have dangerously climbed back into bed. 🥱

I wish I was dead sometimes.

I'm starting to think I'll remove my pic and change my name to Simon when I'm applying for positions in bands.

Goodnight all, the weekend goes too quickly but I've had enough of today 🫡

Minipeelers wanted to go to the farmers market today and I am just too tired and unmotivated to spend the $$. So I'm not very popular atm 😔. This one's a good one, only on once a month so I feel quite guilty but also weather is windy AF.

Is it raining anywhere?

Oh yes. Northeast
- aaand it’s stopped. Big ole fat rain
Big fat rain out east, getting heavier. Plus many ominous rumbles in the sky.
Edit: and now it's stopped raining again.
Just started here
Starting very outer south east.
There's a huge red patch that appeared out of nowhere over Caulfield area! We had a bit of rain down south but it went away pretty quickly.
I decided to get some exercise and walk to the shop instead of driving.
Guess what happened?
- You can't see clearly because the rain hasn't gone?

I think we do have our own culture otherwise we would still be a clone of Britain. We used to be but because of migration we are drifting further away from that which is a beautiful thing.
Colonial Australia does lack a meaning and culture, because they genocided, murdered, raped, and stole First Nations people, refused a Treaty with FN, and they barely have a presence in Parliament (by design). Settler Colonialism is inherently meaningless and cultureless for it's victims and those who vehemently disagree.
Australia is brimming with culture and meaning. It doesn't have to be exotic or ancient to be 'culture'.
It has always been an economic zone, that's what being a colony is.
If we want meaning and culture we have to create our own.
I had a class on cultural safety earlier in the year and someone in that class said she had no culture because she was born here and so were her ancestors up to her great grandparents. But just by living here and interacting with others, she has a culture.
I feel like life really has become all about the overlords squeezing profit and making the line go up

I don't know what it was about this week's episode of Fisk but it was one of the best in the whole two seasons. Fantastic penultimate episode. I'll miss it next season!

I’m still catching up on that slowly. Is next week the last episode of the season?
I did manage to finish OMIB season 4 and I binged all of Castlevania over the last 3 days.
Might wind the night down with Fisk tonight.
- Next week is the finale, yes. 8 weeks feels like it's flown by!

I love the Dollop podcast - there's like over 500 episodes now so some are ordinary but it's amazing to hear the backstory of people. Often those that are held up as heroes are not but there are amazing stories of lesser known people who fought the good fight their whole life. You can't trust the judgement of history but that doesn't mean there's not goodness.

Dinner tonight was an unmitigated disaster.

and we laughed…

I might just go the one sausage today. The Sriracha option is appreciated though

Time to break out the hot weather jarmies. And strip bed down to sheet and maybe cotton blanket only. And only 2 days ago I needed a hot water bottle. Living in this city sure makes one resilient and adaptable.

Also time to check windy.com obsessively to guess when the cool change will come.
Edit: the cool change has reached Warrnambool.

So many car shows on at the moment. We went to one in Whittlesea on Friday and there's one on at MacLeod right now

What type?
- Just a bunch of classic cars parked in front of the shops there. All your classic cars like falcons, toranas, vintage American muscle and the occasional Japanese or European car. It's a good excuse for my boys to go for a walk and look at cars.
  Killer cars and coffee on Facebook is the main organiser

Beep Beep 🚚
🍏🍎🍐🍊🍋🍈🫐🍓🍇🍉🍌🍒🍑🥭🍍🥥🥦🥑🫛🍆🍅🥝🥬🥒🌽🥕🥐🍠🫚🥔🧅🥯🍞🥖🥨🧀🧇🥞🧈🍳🥚🥓🥩🍗🍖🫓🍕🍟🍔🌭🥙🧆🌮🌯🥗🍲🍜🍝🥘🍛🍣🍱🥟🦪🍥🍘🍚🍙🐠🍤🪼🦀🐙 🍗🥮🍢🍡🍧🍰🧁🥧🍦🍨🎂🍮🍭🍬🍫🥜🌰🍪🍿🍯🥛☕️🍵🍺🍶🥤🧋🧃🥂🍷🥃🍸🍹🧉🔋

A glass of champagne to celebrate another cupboard being sold, please
- 🥂
Leftover birthday cake?
- 🍰
Pate de foie gras please on hot toast with coffee.
- 🦆🧈
  🍞☕️
Good morning Chef! May I please have chicken avocado salad with a juice box?
- 🍗🥑🥗🧃
BLT please chef. 😘
- 🍞🥓🥬🍅🍯🍞
Juicy Goose sanga please
- Pardon us. We are capable of capturing only one goose per day. Have a duck instead.
  🍞🦆🍞

hot

sleepy
- Wired

Can I interest anyone in a Sunday morning quiz?

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-11-17/hard-quiz-weekly-trivia/104599170

35/50
Bubble wrap as wallpaper? Wtf
- Good for insulation of sound and heat!
40, I've impressed myself with some wild guesses.
35
30/50 - missed the bagpipes and the bubble wrap and I didn't ought to have. Too early in the morning and/or not enough coffee. Me bad.
- I also should have waited for more coffee. 25/50 I did get the bagpipes right, but not the bubble wrap.
30 here
20 with 2 against my better guesses.
(Meaning it would have been 30 if I’d gone with my instincts, but I aim low. Haha.)
30 🤷‍♂️
50/50 ?!!

struggling with water colour books, I suppose using books meant for pencils just doesn't work 🤔

special water colour practice book has been ordered

Round the Twist: the Musical is coming.

There's some prime culture for you!

I dropped the pill cutter and half an antibiotic tablet has disappeared into thin air…

I find tablets when I move the fridge for cleaning, it's a pharmacy under there!
- I looked with a torch before but don’t see it… it does need a clean underneath though. I’m debating whether moving it is worth the risk of injury

The sun has come out for a visit, I think it is a good time to take Mr Woof out for a stroll around the neighbourhood.

G.B.H. gig this month. I can’t do it. I can’t watch crusty old dudes trying to re-live in glory days. Doesn’t matter what band it is.

Which gig?
- Sorry it’s actually next year,

At verity I didst finish listening to the audio book of The Night Land and it was weird in a good way.

The strange language, not modern but not quite old fashioned either makes it feel weird. He also evokes very good mental imagery of the future world, the landscape , the animals that live there and the future society. The sex, apparently in the future there is no religion and no shame .

Written as a history from the point of view of the main character there is no dialogue.

So strange. I give it 4 hobbits there and a couple of those tall men and a few of the ugly dangerous men and some of those vicious huge dogs and a giant sluggish monster and a volcano or two and vast desolate rock plains and a bit of a swamp too and a heroes welcome back.

I thought things would get easier with sunny weather but they’re still really hard. My mood is dipping really low and I’ve not been sleeping well. It’s bad.

I’m noticing the zucchini are wilting a bit in the heat. Makes sense. They’re growing fast but their roots aren’t reaching down to the bottom of the big pots yet, so they would be getting a bit dry.

I was thinking of some drip spikes or terracotta pots used as ollas but that requires ordering stuff. I don’t really want to get it delivered in case of theft and don’t want to pester someone to get it for me. I did see buried plastic bottles with pinpricks in them used for the purpose so I can make do with what I already have. It’ll also be a lot cheaper.

so many hugs, there is no shame in doing what you can 😘😘😘
- I’ve fallen into so many bad habits because I just can’t physically do what I used to.
  All I can do is justify it by reminding myself that I am still pretty frugal and have a low footprint in other ways
- Yeah, I’ve been staying up late in case Melbcat needs a top up on her meds while sick, but also things are in general just bad. A lot going on

Spent a lot of time practising piano and counting is still hard. But at least I'm getting a tiny bit better. Will practise more tomorrow and hopefully the bars I keep stuffing up will come.

I find tapping my foot or (as silly as it sounds) nodding my head to the beat I'm trying to hold helps a lot.

I finally put on some Mystery Science Theatre after hearing about it for years and I'm both surprised at what it is and understand why it has such a cult following.

One of the guys from the Flophouse podcast was involved with the recent run and it make perfect sense why now.

It feels like the sort of show where you need to watch like 10 episodes to get into the groove and you can just enjoy it from there